Assessment

Yu Sheng and Irene took Hu Li downstairs. The next order of business was finding the fox spirit girl a place to sleep. "There's one empty room on the second floor and one on the first," Yu Sheng said, standing in the second-floor hallway and pointing at the door across from his own room. "This one's opposite mine. Nobody's lived in it for so long that I just piled some junk in there for now, but it's still fairly clean. The empty room downstairs doesn't have anything piled in it, but it doesn't have any furniture either, and it hasn't been cleaned in quite a while. There's also a basement, but even though it's roomy, it's very damp, not fit for living in." "Whatever you decide is fine, benefactor," Hu Li said with a nod, then casually pulled a biscuit out of her tail and nibbled at it in small bites. "Anything's better than the valley." Yu Sheng's gaze drifted, all on its own, to the fox spirit girl's pile of fluffy tails. Even now he couldn't figure out how this girl hid things in there. Just as he couldn't figure out how Hu Li's tails poked out through her clothes—it looked as though the tails simply passed through her clothing like phantoms, with no need for a hole cut in her pants, yet the tails swept around her and now and then bumped into things nearby, clearly solid structures. All he could say was that fox spirits really were amazing. "What's that room for?" Just then Hu Li seemed to notice something else, and she raised a hand to point at the door at the end of the hallway. "That one... theoretically it's Irene's room," Yu Sheng said, glancing in the direction she was pointing, his expression a little strange. "But there's a small problem with it right now..." "A small problem?" Hu Li pulled half a pack of instant noodles out of her tail, stuffed the noodle block into her mouth, and asked curiously as she chomped away. "Things in the room aren't very stable after I open the door, so I need to keep an eye on it a while longer," Yu Sheng said. Watching Hu Li keep pulling things out of her tail, he finally couldn't stop his eye from twitching. "...Just how much stuff have you stuffed in there?" "After my bath, I passed through the living room and put all the food you gave me in there, benefactor," Hu Li said, cradling the instant noodles with a satisfied smile. "I didn't touch anything else." Then she looked at the room at the end of the hallway again and remarked, quite seriously, "Your cave dwelling really is amazing, benefactor." Yu Sheng stared blankly at Hu Li's pile of tails, thinking that this girl was far more amazing than his "cave dwelling"... How had she fit that whole sack of things inside? Was this some version of that round-handed blue fat guy's pocket?! He marveled inwardly for a good while, then finally set the questions aside for the moment and pointed at the room across from his own. "Then you stay in this room for now. Aside from the junk piled in there, it does have furniture ready to use. In a bit, just help me move all that messy stuff down to the basement... I'll find you a clean set of bedding." Hu Li nodded happily at once. "Okay!" Beside them, Irene joined in on the fun. "Yay! Moving things, moving things! I love tidying up!" "Don't go joining in on the fun," Yu Sheng said, glancing down at the little doll (66.6 cm). "You're not even as tall as a box. If you go tumbling down the stairs carrying something and snap your arms and legs, I'll have to fix them all over again." Irene flew into a rage on the spot. She rushed over, jumped up with all her might, and kicked Yu Sheng square in the knee. "Yu Sheng, you bastard!!" Yu Sheng let out a howl that went much higher than Irene's jump. Hu Li watched the scene in some bewilderment, but she quickly realized it was just a friendly everyday exchange between her benefactor and Irene, and the brief worry on her face turned into a happy smile—and then she fished a ham sausage out of her tail. ... Deep in Old Town, inside a private clinic that looked utterly unremarkable from the outside, Lin Yi—dark brown shoulder-length hair, white coat—was frowning hard at the right arm of the girl before her. Little Red Riding Hood sat across from Doctor Lin in a sleeveless T-shirt, resting her arm on the table, while the dark red coat, one sleeve missing, hung on a coat rack near the door. "Doctor Lin, is it serious?" Seeing that the doctor across from her hadn't spoken for a long while, Little Red Riding Hood finally couldn't help asking. "It's not serious this time—but your problem is very serious." Lin Yi raised her head, a trace of irritation in her eyes. "How many times is this now? Your injuries never stop. Keep this up and you'll have almost no gaps between alienation aftereffects; your body and mind won't have time to recover. There's no problem this time, but someday there definitely will be one that goes badly wrong." "I know, but the situation really was urgent at the time, and there was nothing else to be done," Little Red Riding Hood said, her gaze sliding away. "We were being hunted by an entity rated danger level three or higher, one with a tendency toward mental pollution, too. Getting out in one piece is already a miracle..." Lin Yi gave the girl a long, deep look but said nothing more. She simply took up a sharp scalpel from beside her and drew it across her own arm without hesitation. The next instant, a cut appeared out of thin air in the same spot on Little Red Riding Hood's right arm; black-red blood welled from the wound at once, but as if absorbed by some unseen force, it vanished in the blink of an eye. The black markings covering the girl's arm began to fade rapidly and dissipate. "Thank you, Doctor Lin..." Little Red Riding Hood lowered her head and thanked her earnestly. "I'll transfer you the fee once the Special Affairs Bureau settles up." "Never mind. Consider this one a favor, no charge," Lin Yi sighed and looked at the girl across from her, somewhat helpless. She hesitated a few seconds before going on. "...I know you're their 'guardian,' but you should keep some money for yourself. Look how thin you've gotten." "I know, I know." Little Red Riding Hood pursed her lips and put on an impatient look. "Every time, that's all I get." Lin Yi shook her head, tossed the scalpel casually into the porcelain dish beside her, and shifted in her chair. "Since you're here today, I'll do your assessment early—when was the last time you 'dreamed'?" Little Red Riding Hood immediately adjusted her posture to match, her expression turning serious and focused. "Three days ago." "In the dream, was it from a human's point of view, or a wolf's?" "Two-thirds of the time human, one-third of the time wolf—and for one moment, the 'hunter.'" "Who did the hunter shoot at?" "At the wolf." "Good. Seems stable enough." Lin Yi dug a form out of the cabinet beside her, then took a ballpoint pen from the pen holder on the desk and scribbled on the paper. No ink. She took another; still no ink, and she immediately frowned. "...It's got to be those two new assistants. Every one of them presses down like they're carving a monument..." She rummaged in her white coat's pocket for quite a while and finally found a pen that worked, then began scribbling across the form, continuing her questions as she wrote. "At the end, did you see 'Grandma'? Human or wolf?" "...A wolf." "From your expression... you got caught?" "I got caught, but that part of the memory is very muddled. The last thing I remember is escaping from the forest with the wolf pack." Lin Yi stopped, brows tightly knit, tapping the desk beside her with the ballpoint pen in some irritation. "Then there's still some risk. Take a No. 2 intervention agent with you when you leave, give yourself an intravenous injection before you sleep tonight, and I'll put the cost on your tab." "Okay." After that, Lin Yi asked several more questions in a row, and Little Red Riding Hood answered every one of them obediently. This was the "assessment" she went through every month; every member of "Fairytale," herself included, needed to undergo one periodically. In the boundary zone, there were actually quite a lot of "doctors" capable of performing this kind of assessment and providing the matching "treatment," but Doctor Lin was the one she was most familiar with. The lengthy "questionnaire" finally ended. Doctor Lin wrote "temporarily stable, under observation" at the bottom of the form and let out a long breath. Little Red Riding Hood saw the conclusion at the bottom of the form. Though the girl tried hard to keep her face stiff and look calm, a slightly relieved smile still showed. "So you do know how to worry?" Lin Yi shot Little Red Riding Hood a glance. "If you're really that timid, then protect yourself properly. Don't end up like the last Little Red Riding Hood..." She suddenly stopped and said no more. Little Red Riding Hood fell silent along with her, and for a time the clinic sank into an oppressive quiet. After some unknown stretch of time, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly felt a warmth on her hand. Doctor Lin had laid her hand over hers. "Little Red Riding Hood, you're different from the others—at least different from the other 'Fairytale' members I've dealt with," the young "strange doctor" said, staring fixedly into the girl's eyes, her tone earnest and grave. "Your wolves... those first few wolves you subdued, they're very close to you. I can't feel it directly the way you can, but I can tell they're willing to protect you. "So your chances of getting through adulthood safely, and even of making it through 'Feathering,' are higher than everyone else's. But precisely because of that, you can't squander this gift just because your condition is more stable than the others'. You have to find a way to stay alive first, to live longer. Understand?" Little Red Riding Hood was silent, and only after a long while did she finally give a small nod. "...Yeah." In the shadows beside the girl, several pairs of faintly green eyes quietly emerged. One pair drew closer, and a tongue stretched out from the shadow to lick her fingers gently. Lin Yi sensed the shift in the air within the shadows, but she didn't look that way. Instead she rose from her chair, turned, and walked to the refrigerated cabinet in the corner of the room, taking out a dose of medicine that gave off a dim glow. "Here—No. 2 intervention agent. This happens to be the last one left, so I'll let you have it at half price—once your pay comes in, settle up with me right away. You already owe me several thousand." "Thank you, Doctor Lin."